What are the best science fiction movies ?

MOON (2009)

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)

GALAXY QUEST (1999)

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013)

MAD MAX (1979)

ALPHAVILLE (1965)

STAR TREK BEYOND (2016)

“Edge Of Tomorrow” (2014)
Taking “Groundhog Day” and giving it a sci-fi twist (more effectively than Duncan Jones’ “Source Code” a few years earlier), Doug Liman’s excellent blockbuster “Edge Of Tomorrow” picks up Tom Cruise’s dickish PR guy and drops him in the midst of a D-Day-style battle against an impossible alien threat, then makes him live it (and perish in it) over and over again.

“Donnie Darko” (2001)
Amazingly, it’s been nearly 15 years since Richard Kelly’s indie genre-bender arrived, and though its legacy has been tarnished by an inferior Director’s Cut and the helmer’s questionable follow-ups, the film remains as original and enjoyable a creation as ever.

“Donnie Darko” (2001)
Amazingly, it’s been nearly 15 years since Richard Kelly’s indie genre-bender arrived, and though its legacy has been tarnished by an inferior Director’s Cut and the helmer’s questionable follow-ups, the film remains as original and enjoyable a creation as ever.

“Battle Royale” (2000)
The premise of kids killing each other in a government-supported game has now been popularized to billion-dollar effect with the (very good) “Hunger Games” franchise, but if we were going to choose one film in this tiny sub-genre, it was always going to be “Battle Royale.”

“Interstellar” (2013)
Perhaps one of the most hotly contested films, sci-fi or otherwise, in recent memory, Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” received a host of polarizing and emotionally hot reactions

“Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes” (2014)
After Tim Burton’s dreadful 2001 version, few had high hopes for the second reboot of the classic “Planet Of The Apes” series in a decade when Rupert Wyatt’s “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” arrived. But the film was a quiet, unexpectedly moving triumph, and was then exceeded on every front by Matt Reeves’ follow-up, one of the few sequels that trumps the original.

“Beyond The Black Rainbow” (2010)
An instant trippy midnight movie favorite, and constructed entirely with the intention of being exactly that, “Beyond The Black Rainbow” does for mind-bending ‘70s sci-fi what “Berberian Sound Studio” or “Amer” did for giallo, paying homage and bringing it crashing into the 21st century

“Sunshine” (2007)
After the success of “28 Days Later,” and before he became an Oscar-winner, Danny Boyle went into space for a bold vision that, while it isn’t entirely successful, is so transcendent when it hits that it more than deserves a place on this list.

“A.I: Artificial Intelligence” (2001)
Given that it saw beloved director Steven Spielberg taking over a project from one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the history of the medium, the late Stanley Kubrick, it was inevitable that some would be disappointed by “A.I,” and it took a relatively long time for the film to be greeted as anything other than a missed opportunity.

“Ex Machina” (2015)
Having had his hand in some of the most distinctive genre movies of the last couple of decades, writer Alex Garland (“Sunshine,” “28 Days Later,” “Dredd,” “Never Let Me Go”) exceded himself with this, his directorial debut and the most recent movie on our list (it’s still in theaters — go see it!)

“A Scanner Darkly” (2006)
A higher-than-usual number of great sci-fi movies have been made from the work of legendary author Philip K. Dick, but few have been as faithful, or as weird, as Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly.” Set in a near-future where an undercover cop (a rarely-better Keanu Reeves) has infiltrated a group of junkies addicted to the hallucinatory Substance D, only to end up with a very Dick-ian identity crisis when he’s asked to spy on himself

“Minority Report” (2002)
The second part of a masterful Spielberg sci-fi double bill, “Minority Report” was the helmer’s best blockbuster since “Jurassic Park,” but it also proved to be something more: an enormously inventive, unexpectedly funny procedural that delved into serious moral and philosophical issues in the way that all the best science fiction does

“Looper” (2012)
Somewhat similar to “Sunshine,” “Looper” — Rian Johnson‘s third feature after breakout noir “Brick” and loopy, unloved “The Brothers Bloom” — is half of a truly brilliant, all-time sci-fi classic. Unlike Danny Boyle‘s film, however, here it’s the second half that really takes flight, leaving a far more satisfying dismount, and hence its higher placement.

“Gravity” (2013)
While it’s true that Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity,” strictly speaking, does not fall into the sci-fi category (it uses existing tech and is set more or less contemporaneously), the space-set survival tale qualifies for us, more for the very sci-fi sense of wonder and curiosity it embodies.

“Attack The Block” (2011)
So John Boyega is about to be one of the biggest sci-fi stars in the world, but to certain observers of inventive, low-budget British cinema, he already kind of is. As the MVP in writer/director Joe Cornish‘s absolutely terrific “Attack the Block,” (exec produced by Edgar Wright) Boyega, in his debut, inhabited Moses, the surly thug who goes from mugger to unlikely resistance leader when his council block comes under attack from aliens.

“Inception” (2010)
The most original, boldest, and unusual blockbuster of the 21st century so far, “Inception” is a deeply personal delve into the psyche of Christopher Nolan, an explosive, visually delirious action movie about grief and catharsis that somehow made $800 million worldwide.

“Snowpiercer” (2014)
In these days when the phrase “based on a comic book” has more or less become a guarantee of a plasticky, soulless “product” rather than a film, it helps to remember that it also describes Bong Joon-ho’s magnificently weird “Snowpiercer.”